Income Security: A Roadmap for Change

Children’s Aid Societies should be held to a high standard of trust when they
take on the permanent care of a child and undertake to act in the child’s best
interests This includes an expectation that every effort be made to make the
transition to adulthood a successful one The Child, Youth and Family Services
Act, 2017 raises the age of protection from 16 to 18 years This means that many
youth will transition at a later and more mature age, when the chances of success
are greater In addition, the legislation requires that Children’s Aid Societies
continue to offer care and support, including connecting youth to education,
housing and employment programs, to individuals beyond their 18th birthday
Income security reform can build on these positive steps by ensuring these young
adults are a priority in the transformation of social assistance programs, and
by requiring Children’s Aid Societies to place funds from the federal Children’s
Special Allowance (CSA) into a savings programs, an approach already used with
the Ontario Child Benefit Equivalent (OCBE).
With the government’s history of treatment of Indigenous children, and with the
recent Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision on discrimination against First
Nations children on-reserve, steps must be taken to ensure that history does
not repeat itself History has shown us that Indigenous children have been taken
away from their families and communities and placed within Residential Schools
(church-operated boarding schools) to be taught a way of life different to their own
Indigenous children have also been mistreated within the child welfare field where
prevention programs have been underfunded on-reserve and children have been
too often removed from their homes and placed in non-Indigenous homes
In First Nations communities, child care resources are needed when parents are
involved in initiatives that will support children’s paths to well-being
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